001e e e I'll show you later good evening I'd like to welcome you all to our uh Tuesday April 23rd 2024 um Gilbert Public Schools regular board meeting um call it to order we will start with our moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Chad Thompson thank you Mrs Wilson could you please do the roll call Mr Chad Thompson here Miss Lori wood here Miss Sheila ug jetti here miss Jill humph here miss Ronda paage here Madame President all board members are present you have a quorum thank you Mrs Wilson we'll now move to 3.01 approval of the agenda do I hear a motion so moved thank you Mrs paig uh second I'll second thank you Mrs wood it's been moved and seconded that we approve the agenda as presented all
002those in favor please signify by saying I I I so on a -0 vote we have approved the agenda we'll now move to uh 4.01 superintendent's recognition Awards Dr McCord thank you Madame President govering board members if you join me in front of the Das for this evening's Awards good evening good evening good evening there you go thanks for being excited woo well tonight we're going to recognize a group of people and then some individuals but um the first group that I want to recognize is a group of our students who belong and have been selected to be a part of the Gilbert sister cities could I have those students please come up I see three of you there's four right yeah yeah okay well we hope for the best then all right so I
003don't know your name but I'm going to find out what is your name Sydney out and where do you go to school Gilbert High School what grade uh 11 11th grade so here's some things that I read about you yce correct Sydney you like to swim competitively you participate in several skill building camps and you volunteer for various organizations you also serve as an ambassador for Life smart education and you enjoy listening to music and playing dndd with friends what's D and D Dungeons and Dragons that started when I was a kid just so you know um once she graduates you plan to pursue a degree in forensic science and forensic psychology ladies and gentlemen Miss y please give her a hand and you are Kalani George George where do you go to school Campo
004Verde 11th Leilani or kaani right with a K okay you participate many activities including volunteering with both Key Club and biomed science club Girl Scouts and his oh this is good she's a third degree black belt you going to show us a little something no not not on me Mr Macintosh come up here no oh wow that's pretty good um in Taekwondo right okay After High School you plan to pursue a career in cyto genetics is that right what what's that just genetics and genes how they passed on I didn't know if something new was created you know before we started this board meeting kaani George congratulations on being part of sister [Applause] cities and last but not least Claire Hall and I go to Gilbert High School and I'm in 11th grade Claire well
005let's see what they say about Claire are you ready Claire I didn't make any of this up did I guys no that's facts all facts all right Claire's involved with the as is it the Aesthetics program at evit and her school's giving closet outside school she volunteers with organizations such as St M St Mary's Food Bank and Feed My Starving Children any idea what you want to do once we uh let you walk across the stage and get your diploma wish I knew but maybe something to do with Aesthetics but I'm not 100% sure explain what Aesthetics so it's mostly skin care and like the beautification of the skin and everything to do skin care like wow congratulations these and we have one more student and that is Kelly Conway who attends Highland High uh
006she's involved in uh Tech theater and founded the art Club at her school she's also volunteers with her church youth group she also has a holiday pop orn and hot chocolate business donating all earnings to the Make A Wish Foundation each year these are the only students usually there's a lot of applicants they pick students from uh school districts from around the East Valley that touch Gilbert of course so Chandler Higley all the students that they chose this year came from Gilbert public schools and I think you guys can see why so please give them a hand and congratulate them well done if you guys would shake hands with the board and then we'll take a picture congratulations to the middle around you one more [Applause] thank next let's talk about sand volleyball all right
007is Kylie Alexander here come on over Kylie Alexander give her a [Applause] good evening how are you good how about you I'm I'm good doing all right um you go to Desert Ridge High what grade are you in you're a senior senior ready to graduate any plans on what you're going to do after graduation yeah I'm going to go to ASU go to ASU go Devils woo all right sorry U OFA folks um so you're here tonight because you hold a record right for the AIA will you please tell everybody what that record is um 52 wins 52 you personally how does that happen how do you personally have 52 win um well I played the one spot since freshman year and went undefeated most seasons and that is the most by any sand volleyball
008player in the state of Arizona and um where's Co coach at coach not here no but this is the athletic director right there that's Kevin Swan give him a hand for all the support KY we think it is important that we not just recognize academics or Athletics but we also recognize people who truly put forth a lot of extra effort in whatever they do and it's obvious that you're that type of person so we expect great things out of you not just on the sand volleyball but also in life so congratulations to you we're very very proud of you one more time [Applause] for oh wait hold on can I throw detail I'm just the superintendent it's my show but Kevin wants to say a few words go ahead can I throw something yes so
009Luchi is going to ASU to play beach volleyball next year um one really cool piece of this story is her freshman at sophomore year her partner the the her ones partner was um Caprice Lorenzo and so she played with Capri her freshman and sophomore year and Junior and Senior year she plays with Natalie Lorenzo Capri's little sister so it's been like a family literally the whole time and Capri is off playing beach volleyball at the University of Hawaii right now and as we said Luchi um as she goes by her middle name Luchi is going to ASU to play beach volleyball and continue her career there so yeah 52 wins in those four years the most ever by an individual in the state of Arizona pretty impressive stuff thank you for adding [Applause] that Thompson
010[Applause] can I have Payton Gibby up here Hi pton how are you tonight I'm do good how are you I'm great did you did you have you met my replacement over there Mr Kevin Swan he's going to sit in my chair the rest of the night I'm going to sit out here it's going to be great so pton you're a golfer at uh Camp over day high school what grade are you in I'm a senior this year a senior what do you plan on doing next year um I'm going to Fort leis College it's in Durango Colorado to study business management and to play division into golf hand is Mr Blackburn here no okay um Tori singer no okay just just checking I don't want to leave anybody out so she's just not a golfer
011let me kind of explain and read this to you camp overie High School senior pton Gibby took the field March 27th at the LPGA for Championship pram presented by KCC she earned a spot in the tournament's pram having paired with LPGA player Megan Kang who is number 13 in the Rolex women's world golf rankings Payton has proved to be an exceptional golfer having competed in the AIA High School State Championship golf tournament in each of her four High School Seasons so I've been to PG I've been to LPGA can you hear me there people in the back cutting me off they're like we're done with you um and I I got to say you they're exciting from a spectator's point of view can you tell us how what the experiences were about for you there
012you go oh um I think it was just honestly like a really amazing opportunity to get to play like alongside professionals but it was a good learning experience it was definitely nerve-wracking but but they made it pretty um easygoing and like light so it was fun yeah I had a good time so how do you mind if I ask how old you are yeah you're never supposed to ask a woman how old they are how old are you I'm 17 years old 17 and you were probably playing with some professionals that are probably a little bit older than you what did you notice in terms of skill level between you and the people you were playing with they're definitely a lot better than I am I knew that see as a reporter you always ask
013the questions you know the answers to but and and I assume that but did you did you get any tips or anything that you can take to the golf course again when you go out by yourself yeah definitely a lot um with like nerves and stuff like that like they helped with that so yeah big part of game mental right well can you give Miss Gibby a hand and congrat at her if you'd shake the hands of the board we'll take a picture uh you guys have gotten to witness students that truly represent Gilbert public schools in the very best way possible so please give everybody a hand for being here tonight the Chad conratulations ladies and gentlemen that concludes my recognitions for this evening thank you wow thank you Dr McCord you're not not
014off the hook yet superintendent report 5.01 thank you madam president govering board members I'd like to recognize a few people that are here tonight representing different programs that we have in Gilbert public schools first I would i' like to recognize from superintendent student Senate Mr Adam Moon please stand up Adam you're a senior this year ready to graduate oh yeah ah thank you for being here we've H we've had the pleasure of being with Adam for the last couple years and I got to tell you what um being with Adam and his colleagues on the superintendent student Senate they they truly put smiles on my face so thank you for what you do Adam appreciate it and then next in the back left of the seating thought they could hide but they can't they're part
015of our Aspire program these individuals are uh possibly looking at uh going into Administration one day and we have an Aspire program that kind of takes him through what that would look like in real life and so if I could have miss Patricia Shores and Mr Marcus H please stand they both work at Highland High School and our instructional coaches and do a phenomenal job so thank you guys for being here tonight okay good evening and thank you to everybody for joining us this is support staff appreciation week I want to thank all of our support staff for everything they do for our students and each other on a daily basis you are an integral part of our success and we could not accomplish all the needs that all that needs to be done without
016you we truly depend on your skills and your heart and we thank you so have a great week Gilbert Public Schools was voted the best communities for music education for the fifth consecutive year GPS has been honored with the best communities for music education designation from n which is the National Association of Music Merchants foundation for its outstanding commitment to music education the best community communities for music education designation is awarded to districts that demonstrate outstanding achievement in efforts to provide music access and education to all students to qualify for this award GPS answered detailed questions about funding graduation requirements use music class participation instruction time facilities support for the music program and Community Music making programs responses were responses were verified by officials and reviewed by the music Research Institute at the University of
017Kansas and once again 5 years in a row Gilbert Public Schools nailed it so congratulations to all of our music programs uh Campo verie held Jazz alamode Friday night this Friday evening I had the pleasure of attending a jazz concert at Campo ver in their cafeteria again the the title was Jazz Alam mode and we were treated to some extra extraordinary sounds from our students and some dessert and I can honestly say that it was one of the most entertaining and enjoyable evenings I've had in a very very long time so thank you for Campo and Mr kak for inviting uh us as well as providing uh just some great great entertainment by some very special students so we thank you this Friday at 4:30 p.m. we will hold our annual employee of the year
018celebration this year will be held at Highland High School in their Auditorium and we look forward to honoring our teachers support staff and administrators and the Gilbert Education Foundation scholarship in Varsity letter night will be held tomorrow Wednesday April 24th from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. at the mosquit junior high Auditorium we will honor approximately 40 high school students for their academic achievements and volunteerism we'd especially like to thank the Gilbert Education Foundation for their generosity and support of our students and our staff and lastly um it's Art Show season and if you haven't attended any of the art shows there's still time ele art show was held April 8th through the 10th at Norwoods Furniture Junior High art show is started last Thursday and ends this evening at HD and it's being hosted by HD
019South and the high school art show begins Thursday April 25th and runs through next Thursday May 2nd at HD South as well thank you to Norwoods and HD South for hosting the artwork of our talented students your kindness and generosity makes a huge difference in our community Miss ug jetti that concludes my report for this evening thank you thank you Dr mord uh we do not have any requests to speak to the governing board tonight um although we did have one online comment and just so that that our um public knows that we that is available for um for you at any time you can make an online comment thank you we will now move to 7.01 action item appointment of Dr sha Rosales is the principal of town Meadows for the 2425 school year
020Dr McCord do you want to say anything before we do in yes I would it was it is my distinct pleasure to uh bring to you tonight miss sha Rosales Dr Rosales as the next principal of town Meadows Elementary thank you very much do I hear a motion to uh approve the appointment of Dr sha Rosales is the principal of town Meadows I move to point Dr shama Rosales as the principal of town Meadows for the 2024 2025 school year thank you Mrs humph do I hear a second a second thank you Mrs Paige it's been moved and seconded that we approve the appointment um all of those in favor please signify by saying I I so on a unanimous vote of 5 you are you have been appointed and we've got some of your
021teachers here your future teachers hey hold on Town Meadows you ready oh I remember this thank you you want to get up and say a couple words please are you taking over my position now you know you got you got yours taking over it seemed like the theme tonight I didn't know yes we'll we'll let you talk and then we'll take about a 5 minute break okay but you don't have 5 minutes to talk just so you know okay minutes okay Dr mcord Madame President members of the board thank you so much for your confidence in me I'm truly humbled and honored with this appointment I need to take a moment to thank my parents who took a chance on adopting a few Foster babies my twin brother and I were raised to be productive
022members of society as a kid I didn't know what that meant but I got it now I need to thank all of my GPS mentors Dr Brian Jagger Vicky Jones Fran Gren bucker Lisa Creer and Dr Sean jitas thank you for modeling what leadership is and what it could be finally I need to thank my hubby going on 25 years for your unwavering support and to my three boys love you I will never forget how amazing the last four years has been as a hurricane thank you to the canes who are here tonight to support me it truly means the world to me Mr Pettit has done an amazing job of leading the Timberwolves and he leaves some really big shoes to Phil I'm ready for this new adventure and I can't wait to meet
023the rest of my timberwol family I love our mission statement and I too promise to love them believe in them inspire a love for Learning and challenge them to grow thank you thank [Applause] you okay let's take about a five minute break so that people can mingle and say congratulations e e e yeah thank you is there anybody left all right thank you very much let's move on to 8.01 our monthly financial report and third quarter financial report ended March 31st 24 for fiscal year 2024 Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members I will turn this over to our associate superintendant um Miss Bonnie Betts good evening m madame president governing board members Dr McCord so the this is the um status of our financials through March 31st 2024 so that's the third
024quarter so in addition to the monthly report we are sharing some information regarding how Gilbert Public Schools compares to a year ago third quarter year to date um compared to today so to begin um we we've just chosen a few of the uh the budget to actual grids um and then you can see in Roman numeral 2 the third quarter Financial again both year to date March 31st 2024 so as always we share the district operating funds the main source of our operating dollars so note first the projected budget revision number to so you will see something very comparable to this uh two weeks from now when we present the final revised budget to you for the current fiscal year note that maintenance and operations continues to have a spend um we're maintaining about that
02513.6 million balance we are anticipating that when we propose the budget in June that we will budget a budget balance carry forward into 2024 2025 of between 13 and $16 million okay uh note the Civic Center spend there was a significant increase in Civic Center we had U made a commitment this past spring to replace uh three of our five uh three of our four turfs throughout G public schools with natural grass not with um artificial turf and in so doing uh Johnny Gutierrez are are um operation supervisor over grounds committed to make Shing that to monitor them and and keep them up over time and one of the strategies is to make sure that there's a designated mower for each of those stadiums so because Civic Center represents revenues received from rentals seemed an
026appropriate fund to use to fund um half of those mowers going um so that each Stadium will have its own mower the issue is mostly cross-contamination issues with bringing weeds in and stuff like that so it's a good strategy to make sure that we're maintaining our our turf fields in our stadiums and then finally unrestricted Capital at this point in time School spend has been discontinued so you may see some changes in the expended encumbered column as we receive requests from departments um but should be a minimal amount of spend through the remainder of June 30 so if there are any questions okay I'll move on to the next one uh Federal grant funds you can see that all of our ESA are our title funds are highlighted so finally we just received the final
027allocations for our Title One funds in the current year so that projected budget revision number two has been updated to reflect that uh same thing with idea Part B also we are we have been managing idea Part B it's our special education fund from the federal government to try to have a carryover between 700,000 and 900,000 going into the new year um if you um you may not know but we spend over $60 million annually out of m&o for special education uh needs and so we are always looking for opportunities to spend down the Federal grant knowing that that about almost $70 million is needed to support the special ucation program here in gber public schools and then finally just a call out regarding uh the eser monies the settis sides left over all that
028money must be spent by September 30th and we do plan on using a large portion of that to fund the math adoption um through uh to to fund the math adoption through five or six years and fund it upfront with the available Esra dollars and then finally the 3399 is highlighted due to the targeted um targeted intervention grant let me check that um the targeted support Improvement Grant um where we receed that that late and so that's been adjusted accordingly um with the new Budget on the projected budget revision number two that's all I have on the Federal grant funds uh state Grand funds just the school safety program SRO J GP G jpo uh note that that money has been expended uh associated with the uh the um school resource officers that are at
029msk junor and msk high and finally the school safety program we're just waiting on the revision to that school safety program Grant to clear out that uh negative 11,000 overspend okay other funds uh we we had we had been looking carefully at the employee benefit trust as you know we've spent a lot of time over the last month looking at the financials associated with the employee benefit trust and our figures on this grid was not necessarily matching up to the figures that we're presenting to the employee benefit trust board as well as the committee and so we have adjusted all of these uh figures to uh more accurately represent what we expect to happen so you can see the available balance is expected to be about $23.6 million at the end of June 30 and
030then finally the bond fund we had shared last month that we anticipated moving any available resources um that had not been encumbered or spent out of the security line the technology line uh to move it into facilities renewal knowing that we still have some significant Bond project eligible expenditures and so this grid reflects that we have left about $1.2 million in transportation anticipating their duplication of their purchase uh going into um the 24 25 school year buying about um 8 to 12 new buses okay and then uh finally that's all I have on the monthly Financial if there are any questions I'm very happy to take those any questions from anybody okay great thank you thank you so now going into the third quarter financial report again recall that we are just giving you the
031year to date through June through March 31st of 2024 and comparing that to year to date March 31st 2023 so you can see the changes that have occurred year over-year based upon decisions that you all you all had made so uh the first thing we go through is the revenues so operating Revenue by source and whenever we talk about the source we're talking about whether it's coming from federal funds from local funds or from State funds the big difference or change that occurred 2023 to 2024 note the county we had a little bit of residual from the County Equalization in 2023 and that has been totally zeroed out at this point so no new revenues in County Equalization just a reminder the legislature eliminated the County Equalization property tax going into the 2023 school year
032um and then you can see too that that the amount uh the amount expected versus actually received is a is comparable in both years about 64 60 between 64 and 65% and we would expect at this point in time that it would be 75% because we are 3/4 through the year that is primarily due to property tax revenues which primarily come to us in April as well as the fact that there's about $36 million of a delayed payment going into the new fiscal year from the um State of Arizona so the other other note is there is a small amount of federal remember that this grid represents our operating grid which includes eate and Medicaid and so the federal monies are coming from those two funds okay and this is just showing the year-over-year comparison
033um by source so you can see the the difference more clearly about what we're expecting to get versus how much we've received so this is the operating Revenue by fund couple things I'd like to point out um classroom site fund uh is a major fund and and you can see that the amount of Revenue has increased year-over-year so we have received 22.5 million in the current year over 21 million a year ago uh note that the unrestricted capital in 2023 was only 8.3 million and you can see that it's gone up to 24 million in uh 2024 but conversely M was at 172 in 2023 and down to 165 in 2024 so the reason that that occurred is due to a strategy that we have implemented in finance where all of the revenue expected so
034remember that unrestricted capital and maintenance and operations are combined from both state and local property taxes they they both feed into both of those funds but we are able to earn interest on unrestricted Capital so our strategy was to put all of the revenue into unrestricted Capital first until we are not due any more revenues so that we can maximize interest earnings and maximize our budget capacity and unrestricted Capital so we just implemented that this year and this is the expected annual revenues just wanted to show the classroom site fund you can see the the classroom site fund is that 28.1 last year and 29.4 this year and we've received 21 and 22.5 respectively that does represent about 75% because classroom site fund we do receive in in 112th every month we do receive that
035regularly but you can see the differences in um in M for example the the disparity of between the 75% that you would expect versus about the 65% actually received okay and then finally year-to dat expenditures just showing how we compared to a year ago we would expect that we would have increases in salaries you can see that at this point in time a year ago there was about $200 million encumbered expended and this year it's a little bit more at $25 million reflective of the 3% salary increase that you all approved last spring and note the benefits though the benefits last year was nearly $20 million more than the benefits in the current year you would expect the benefits in the current year to be higher than the benefits last year due to the increase
036in salaries but remember that that $20 million swing represents the Arizona State Retirement prepaid that you all approved last year okay and then operating is pretty consistent year-over-year and finally um I just wanted to point out that um the uh difference between what was expended encumbered versus the cash that we've received so note that our cash is short on on how much we we received um the the expended encumbered to date is 330 million we would expect that we would have spent 75% of that because so much of it is encumbered but um but the amount that we've actually received in cash is um is short by about 114 $ million so that's reflective of the fact that in Arizona we are budget driven so however we however we operate we are able to to
037spend to our budget limit regardless of how much cash that we have so the way the system works however is that if we don't have excess cash where we can avoid borrowing from the County Treasurer or avoid doing tax anticipation notes um because we have uh significant cash balances we are able to eliminate that cost and that cost is uh allowed to be um imposed upon the taxpayer but we do not do that because we have adequate excess cash in all of our accounts and that's all I have to share [Music] today thank you okay we'll move on to 8.02 uh teaching and learning academic Spotlight Spotlight Dr McCord thank you madam president govering board member I will turn it over to our assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Mr Jared Ryan good evening Dr
038McCord Madame President governing board uh we've been talking for weeks or actually months regarding math curriculum adoption um but we want to go back a little bit in time to a Ela curriculum adoption that that has been rolled out um my perspectives was selected some time ago and we have um some fine folks here our director of secondary CIA Dr Christa Cox our coordinator of secondary Ela Jenna Corelli buck and our department chair at Highland High School Shannon how how um who is here to talk with us about implementation and what we're seeing in the classrooms kind of giving a report back so here they are 874 e we have it all right good evening you guys come on this side okay Madame President members of the board Dr mcor you want to turn that
039you can is that okay yeah oh yeah per you're good thank you for having us here tonight we're excited to give just a little bit of an academic Spotlight and update on my perspectives which is the Ela adopted curriculum that we went through a couple of years ago and we are in year two of implementation and we just want to remind uh the board and community that our strategic operating plan has really been the uh central point of all of our training and um has kept us focus on making sure everything is intertwined as opposed to maybe adding in separate initiatives that maybe don't fit our vision and so with that it all started with uh the same goal in mind which was being committed to student centered uh learning and environments and for our
040teachers making sure that the instructional framework is grounded in high levels of rigor and relevance which uh was at the core of all the rubrics that we used during the implementation process a couple of years ago and then with our school leaders to make sure that they also are facilitating a student- centered culture and um with that targeted instructional feedback so as we go through this presentation this evening you'll see that uh we really are going to be sharing through the lens of how our students are doing how our teachers are doing and also how our administrative and leadership group is doing because it takes all stakeholders for the implementation to continuously be successful so I'm going to turn it over these two ladies when we were putting this presentation together I think they would
041love to spend a whole week telling you about the progress of my perspectives um and I couldn't have had two better people to just share through through their passion so they are going to kind of go through the next several slides for us tonight okay I'm going to come up hello Madam president B I'm Jenna Kelli buck and I haven't been up here since we adopted this this was the last time and that was in Spring of uh 22 uh but just a little bit of background we got pushed back a whole semester this whole process was supposed to start the year that Co hit and so we lost a whole semester in the process however um because Gilbert Public Schools is amazing we were able to pull it together and uh we formed the
042committee you just went through the whole process with math it was almost exactly the same we formed the committee we received materials we reviewed materials with some really rigorous rubrics like Dr Cox said about the you know student centered learning and making it rigorous and relevant uh and in April of 2022 my perspectives was adopted for grades 7 through 12 um that spring um we were able to get every English teacher in a very short timeline uh together and we were able to go over the design we were able to go over the materials we were able to show them how to navigate um a curriculum that had a remarkable amount of resources available to them um you got to remember our high school teachers hadn't had a new curriculum in almost two days decades
043so this was a big big deal for them and they jumped right in um our first year of implementation in 2223 uh was really learning how to implement and and what was available and what it would look like in the classroom and you know what how the different units went and so there was a lot of conversations I spent a lot of time on campuses talking to people like like Shannon Department chaires like how's this going what are we learning um uh I was able to um meet with the admins uh who oversaw or evaluate the English departments and give them an overview of what they should be looking at in the classrooms how it was designed how it was tied to our instructional standards the Arizona State Standards um and this year we've spent
044a lot of time talking about how it all fits in with our instructional framework how it fits in with the GPS big instructional you know the continuous Improvement plan um and it's been remarkable frankly and I love it uh one of the things that I have been able to see that I really appreciate is uh saice lets me see um access from campuses and how many teachers are accessing it how many students are accessing it we can see all of that data and you know they jumped right into that right off the bat it really is impressive how they're using these different materials um The Learning walks that I've been able to do have been remarkable as well to see the Ingenuity and the instructional creativity of a lot of our teachers where they take
045an excellent resource and then they tie it to what their particular class or their particular students need it's been great so just one thing yes with the with the training um just want to hit on as well when Jenna talks about the learning walks that has been uh collaboration with multiple different Departments of leaders including site leadership our instructional coaches and we collectively go around with rubrics on what to look for so it helps us to celebrate where things are going well but from a training perspective um that is something that we have targeted this last couple of years to help identify when maybe a newer teacher is struggling if we are not out and about in the classrooms to see this um a teacher could think that they are doing well and that it's
046going smooth and by having um instructional leaders in the classroom it I'll tell you when we started sometimes the teachers would stop and kind of look like do you need something can we help and the culture has very quickly shifted across our Secondary School uh we were just out Monday uh at two of our schools that uh had amazing things to show and when we were out and about we had a team of eight of us and they didn't even bat an eye and the students love it so I just wanted to add that uh the learning walks have been an additional part of that training and it's just fostering um the areas that we need to continuously focus on yeah it has been it's what it's my favorite part of my job now going
047out on the learning walk um so our next slide what you're looking at here um this is something that really only became feasible after having a year or two of implementation uh what you're looking at here is a teaching and learning map for grades well 7 through 12 where we now have a guideline on what is going to be taught in the first quarter second quarter third quarter and fourth quarter the standards and the skills that we want our teachers to focus on and what so now we have a really good idea and some consistency across the board of what our kids are learning and when they're learning it which lets us when we're out on our learning walks be able to see exactly what's happening when regardless of what site we're at and so
048there's some some continuity there which we hadn't had before and it's been really really powerful um there was an amazing um my my strike force Mr Ryan laughs me I brought together an Ela Strike Team and uh we using their year or two of implementation they were able to help develop this uh with the idea of now we're all going to be on the same page and so with that I would like to introduce one of the members of my Ela Strike Team uh Shannon hardig who is the department chair at Highland and a very excellent English teacher thank you good evening Madame President and board um thanks for letting me come here and giving the opportunity to speak to you guys about the English curricul curriculum which has been fantastic um Highland was actually
049one of the schools that implemented the curriculum our entire department uh did the um the first year where we kind of piloted things and then we implemented um so we've had our hands in the curriculum for a little bit longer than some of the other schools um and one of the things that we were able to be a part of was this with Jenna um helping on her Strike Force um that was really great for teachers because it allowed teachers to have a voice in here's the units that are working here's the units that are not working um and it also provided a really great opportunity for collaboration across District um now that this is built um what I see happening for our plc's um at my school and the other schools that are uh
050using this curriculum is that we're going to get a lot of clarity um and collaboration amongst the teams both at the site level as well as districtwide um it's giving us also like a vertical alignment um as far as me being a department chair what I can say about going on learning which is something that we're doing at Highland is that it allows me as a department chair who maybe only is involved in one or two different grade levels actually teaching that I now can see an overview of what's supposed to be happening curriculum wise 9th through 12th grade and as new teachers are coming in whether they're first year teachers or just new to our district this also provides me an overview that's really quick and easy to see what they need to be
051working on so coaching and mentoring with them on the instructional level also becomes easier because of this resource um so I think that overall this is giving us a great plan for um promoting collaboration and promoting Clarity and working together as we make progress uh over the next couple of years for the students using this curriculum CH oh yeah go and we also uh one of the things and I'm going to just I think it's um I'm going to sound like a little bit of a broken record but when you look at this identifying the needs that teachers have in best supporting our teachers by having some of this consistency there it allows us to Target where they're at and use relevant curriculum at that time at the quarter as opposed to before when maybe
052all the sites and the different grade levels were maybe implementing different units at the same time and then that goes down to the student level um when you're comparing data which is a huge part of the PLC process there are four questions that are teachers are answering weekly which include what our students know what they don't know what are we going to do about that to enrich enrich that or intervene if they don't know it and so uh when Shannon outlined some of those PLC pieces that's when we talk about um student outcomes and even improving our teachers abilities with the training of the new curriculum we have to continuously monitor both of those things um so the natural out come of having the big picture of the uh the teaching and learning map we've
053now created uh unit overviews so it's essentially a One-Stop shop and especially with our new teachers that are coming in where it it can be overwhelming to have a curricular resource that is has as many resources in it as my perspectives uh but now we have teachers and with our department chairs and our coaches and everyone who's there to help our teachers support you know our student progress when they open it up the teaching learning map they can click on the unit and they're going to get this which is the unit overview um I'm I'm thinking of this as sort of a living document right now when they open it up it's very clear here's the name of the unit here's the essential questions and then it's very clear about what the key Concepts or
054skills which are all standards driven are listed right there so there's no guesswork this is what we need to you know get our our kids working on um they also have access to a variety of resources but if you move down and explains you know with lessons uh resources in my perspectives there are lessons that are provided in my perspectives but we're also going to um provide examples of active learning experiences and some of the things that our amazing professional growth and development team has going up talking about instructional strategy and pedagogical focus and you know just because it's written in my perspectives that might not be appropriate at that particular time maybe there's something else we can do so the kids can their progress can really improve now that we kind of have everyone
055on the same page AG it's a lot easier for me to find examples of excellent teaching and what people have done and we can build a resource bank and when we have some of our younger teachers one through five and they don't sure what to do they just I don't know now they have examples this worked here this is what I did this explains it and hopefully it'll it'll reduce some of the stress that our our younger teachers have and get them excited and want them to stay in the profession I I just start one question on this because I do remember looking at this curriculum and really the um way the chapters are set up to to have a some questions are the students enjoying that really deep thought process that these chapter of
056the essential questions yes yeah having a reason to participate in reading and writing like not just because it's assigned to you uh one of my perspective strengths is it functions everything like here's an idea and let's practice all these literacy skills as we learn to talk about what this idea is because a lot of times our kids just see reading and writing is something that happens in school it's not a literacy is a skill that we need and having that essential question so they're doing this literacy work in pursuit of entering into a conversation about a bigger picture or a bigger idea the kids do enjoy that quite a bit well I felt it was really well set up that the questions they ask there's really all kinds of right answers for those questions so
057I really think it would be ex the perspectives they all have perspectives I mean I just think it would be exciting for students to discuss those um I just want to add that from like a teacher's perspective this is really helpful when you get a curriculum like my perspectives it's phenomenal but it's also a lot and so especially if you're new to teaching um you can open up a unit and see 75 pages and go I don't know what to look at there's things you know all over the page and it's like well how do I take this and implement it into what's required of GPS what's required of my school what's required of my department what's required of my PLC and this provides teachers a like Jenna said a One-Stop shop of getting to
058look at this and it's all streamlined so it takes like going through the weeds out of it and also provides teachers guidelines without taking the autonomy away from everyday planning of lessons which is where like the art of teaching is you still have all of that and even if you're stuck in that and don't really know what to do like Jenna said there's going to be model lessons there which is another way to empower teachers of of showing them like this lesson was really good here's an example from someone in our district that you could look at to use for this particular lesson for this day in this unit do they go to a website to access this or where is this um resource for this is going to be on the very first page
059of the GPS Ela secondary curriculum site so that's the first place they're going to go thank you and when we talked about um monitoring the reports that Jenna mentioned uh we recognize that there are student consumables and so there are teachers that we're trying to meet them where their comfort is and all of these guides equally support both of those with the digital resources and the student consumables all right so up next um uh the natural outcome of having all of this aligned was uh being able to develop common unit assessments and uh my perspectiv offers a wide variety of assessment opportunities um you know uh you have pre-tests post tests formative assessments sorts of things um the unit assessments though are awesome one because they're asking students to apply the skills they've learned in
060that unit in a cold read so they will be having to they're going to be engaged with texts that they haven't seen before and they're going to have to show that they can apply the skills and the standards that they learned which is exactly what they're going to see on an Aspire or an act exam um we really want to build up their stamina for reading so they can cuz when they leave a us we aren't going to tell them you know what they need to know about a text they're going to have to figure that out for themselves um but having this now with everybody doing the same unit at the same time we're going to be able to get some really great data um well primarily the teachers are going to be able
061to get some data that's going to be able to inform their instruction and their discussions and their plc's but then we can also have great discussions about the progress that students are making across the district at our various uh grade levels and it makes it easier for me as a coordinator to see if there's a gap somewhere that I might need to go in and and do some more support and that's something now that I can look at quickly you know with the first quarter and moving on through the fourth quarter and and then we can see that progress 7 through 12 go ahead and add whatever you'd like to that okay so um going back to the unit overviews that like Jenna said this is going to naturally this is where we go right
062is now we need some formative and summative checks for those so thinking about our plc's that unit overview is extremely helpful for the plc's in their planning um at Highland um in my English Department all of our departments have a common preassessment common formative assessment and common summative assessment that they've created they use various tools for those things things that of my perspectives um and some of the other resources that we are provided um like illuminate and things like that one of the things that we just recently did was uh a deep dive into the data of our final exam data and we noticed what all of my plc's came out realizing is that they needed some more multiple choice testing that mimicked the style of the final exam data and so this happened to
063like happen at the same time completely unrelated but very exciting uh because this is really helpful for the teachers so um they are they're going to be able to get this and use the is like common formative assessments common summative assessments they can also use this as a tool to adjust and mimic some formative assessments that they just do within their plc's that aren't NE necessarily like District assessments um and practice practice exams as well so these common assessments that Jenna is providing us um also are going to allow teachers to to get a little bit more um Clarity in what their instruction needs to look like cuz this is quick feedback timely feedback for both teachers and students so that they can build from that uh to provide enrichment and reteaching if necessary for
064the students so with the common unit assessments that will go into place next year across the district as Miss Hadi had mentioned there are plenty of uh plc's grade levels at our secondary schools that have already uh done some work to do this at the site level or maybe um at one high school you might see one grade level that's got it done but the other grade levels are maybe don't have the time to finish creating some assessments and so we knew we were at a point uh and Jenna mentioned it when we talk about student outcomes we have uh done a really great job of executing the training we are doing learning walks and collecting all sorts of qualitative quantitative and anecdotal data to support our teachers but really the whole reason that we're
065here is for our students and those students outcomes it is more difficult at the high school level cuz our state assessment is a norm reference test but the teachers are also teaching state standards and so therefore with our final exams and assessments during the year we have a balancing act of making sure that they are getting um excellent examples of ACT prep while also making sure that they are learning the Arizona State Standards and skills so with moving forward with the common unit assessment it's going to give us um one a quarter it's one a unit to give those checks and balances so we can monitor student progress along the way and not wait until the end of the year when we have the final exams and or a state assessment so those are summi
066of and at the very end of the year when then that next year teacher I'm not sure how much they're diving into that because they have their new set of Standards so really through all of the work that we've done this year we've identified that our next year's goal and plan is to really dive into um ongoing checks and balances with the student progress so next steps include implementing the common unit assessments districtwide beginning next year there will be training we are already having meetings and I know just a couple of weeks ago I feel like it was yesterday we were here talking about the math adoption um I shared with everybody that uh Mr Ryan put together a task force of leaders to really take on implementing the math adoption as a team so
067that it didn't just fall on the math coordinator and while that was happening uh probably Midway through the year we got uh a couple of people instructional coaches they tend to be our overachieving type A never heard of that style but there's a couple in the room uh they make us they run circles around us and a couple of them had pointed out like that's really good and we're already noticing like it's more effective with the type of team because you're getting more people moving forward with understanding the math adoption and so what and the complaint was well why didn't we do that for English well we had never done this before it was just a new idea that Mr Ryan brought so now everybody wants these task force which is a great thing so
068um Jenna and myself put together a team and it's all sorts of District leaders so if they're in special education if they're in pgd if it it doesn't matter tech services instructional leaders um and so we're trying to build momentum there as well to make sure that it doesn't seem like it falls on the English coordinator the department chairs at the schools this is a collective thing and Gilbert Public Schools our secondary schools we are all responsible for the success of the curriculum and all of our areas so that momentum is contagious um some of the things that we found while looking at student outcomes this year and um even uh looking at different sets of data if that be during our impact checks or our district Improvement planning was that we need to build
069and this is collectively across the board uh some of our literacy skills and so when we implemented the new curriculum we were finding that our students maybe weren't as exposed to some of the literacy skills higher level reading uh we've had a lot of teachers that are like well this curriculum is like too hard for the students and I'm like well this is a really good curriculum and we need to raise the bar like this is the bar and we're going to we're not settling for anything other than this so we will be moving forward um with a literacy initiative at all of our uh 6th through 9th grade is going to be the focus that's the areas that the data showed that we need to to do that but it really is a K12
070um uh approach and then with that there are different areas of intervention outside of literacy that we have identified and within the curriculum there are tools that we just haven't gotten to because the training over the last year and a half has been everything these ladies just shared but there are even more tools and supports and playlists so to speak that allow students to be met at their skill and so we know that based on the reports we've seen that the teachers and students haven't quite gotten into that as consistency and regularly as we would like and so that is a Next Step uh focusing on building the reading lab in our intervention supports for our students there it's happening but again we want that to be happening in all classrooms in all of our
071schools and then with the data usage um we've been uh just recently bringing that to our principles but our next step is uh data is not something to be scared of it shows us where we are and sometimes there's a story that goes with it or there's a reason why it looks that way and let's talk about it um but it also helps us to really look in the mirror and reflect where we are so we do plan to um work toward getting that in the hands of our teachers our PLC leads our instructional leaders because that knowledge is power so those are all the next steps that we have outlined as a team um and that kind of concludes what we wanted to share with you again this took hours of pairing down um
072but we would we would like to open it up to questions and I even told them I said you guys can answer all the questions because I just know they really want to so are there any questions on our my perspectives curriculum questions from other board members Rhonda yeah thank you and boy I appreciate your enthusiasm um that's contagious um I just had a quick question I should have asked you way back when and I don't know if I should call you miss Buck or Jenna everything's been okay going back to one of the very first slides you were talking about you could access to see which teachers through Savas who had come in and accessed what do you do when you find that a teacher hasn't come in and access that do you I
073haven't found any teacher yet who has not accessed what what the data tell it shows me what the report shows me what the report shows me when I go in and look is I can see when they're signing in to their account and they're signing in all I haven't had one teacher who hasn't signed in but we also as as Dr Cox mentioned we have those student consumables so teachers might not be assign anything digitally but they're going in to look at resources and they might be creating something or moving it around they're in there looking at it but I it's hard to tell because there's the digital option to assign things digitally but that isn't always what's best for a kid and that's why we also got that student consumable um and so that's
074good news I I know that everyone's engaged with it in some way um but now that we've got this place and we're going to start spending more of our time doing the learning walks and the teachers kind of know what's happening most of my information I think is just going to come on the ground I'm just going to walk in and and invite people in to talk to me about you know how are you using this what's it going to be but we continue to look at that data just to see but there's a ton of student logins too I mean a combination of looking at the student logins and to uh her point about if the teacher is not assigning assignments there and then we're doing our walkthroughs and we don't see the consumables
075in their hands that would be a separate conversation but if we see that they're just logging in accessing the resources and not assigning digital resources and we go in and they've got the consumables out then we're okay with that um but checking both is important if we just see the consumables and we can't make any assumptions we really do have to see evidence one way or another yeah thank you so much for that presentation and thanks for answering that question of course Mrs SRE yes so um I know there's digital resources there's the consumables and then there's a book correct that we a textbook the student consumable is the textbook okay it's the textbook yes so the texts are all in there but they're consumable in that the students can annotate they can write they
076you know they're they're already three hoold punched they could be put into notebooks you can do all sorts of things with them okay so that that answers my question because I just wanted to see if students were able to take that home and use it at home when they need to do their homework so so thank you they have access to both they have the consumable and if they want to go in digitally to rewatch a video that might be in there or something like there was something you know where they did a short video on um the dust bowl and then they read an excerpt of uh Grapes of Wrath if the student wanted to watch that video again that was shown in class they can go into their student digital account and watch
077it and then they could open up their consumable and they can read the hard copy great so yeah so one more question is just that when we moveed to these new academic standards and a different way of teaching I mean I I am impressed with what the kids know I have an English degree but I go to the high school I'm like okay they are way ahead of me so um and I know that they're you know annotating and and using reading that text do we still have some occasions where they're reading an entire novel yes all the time okay great and you know there's companion novels that you know well everything that's on the GPS approved novel list uh in fact our approved novel list I have it listed like here's the novels that
078would fit with these units if you choose to do that and so absolutely they are reading whole novels at every grade level okay great great thank you can I just ask a kind of a follow-up question with Miss Humphrey what she was asking so the the students they're very well aware that they can go in and re-watch a video they're very trained on what they can access digitally they're getting better okay as the teachers have learned more they've gotten better at telling the kids how to access it and it's it took a year for the teachers to realize how this all it it was one of those things like I could have gone out and done a training every day but it's one of those things that the more you use it the better it
079becomes like using Excel I guess which is still a mystery to me but if you use Excel all the time then it's just not a problem they've gotten better at it okay and so we're starting to see more of that okay I Mrs wood yes thank you I had a question about the common unit assessments and I was wondering when you give those so that will be the end of each unit basically and every classroom across the district basically um are those like going to be that you'll take a grade on it I think that's going to be a sight decision you want to take this one she's probably questioning how she answer well I I don't want to put you on the spot I'm just wondering cuz I I've known in the past when
080we've tried to do districtwide tests and then this is going to be different because we're all using the same curriculum we're all hopefully the teachers have helped put in for these questions and everything should be similar but I know it's caused like grief and frustration like kids are like oh my gosh I'm yeah it would be low lower Stakes it's not anything that's going to go in the grade book that would kill a student's grade um I'm really proud of the work we've done with our grading beliefs and practices to kind of help um collectively uh have a better understanding of configurations and what those best practices are so I would say that it would fall to the plc's and the grade levels at the schools we're not going to say it has to be
081graded this way at all of the schools I trust our teachers to come up with what that would look like uh but we have moved in a direction where like test retakes are acceptable and if a student maybe can show Proficiency in another way shape or form or come and show that in a different way teachers know to work with students in that way um and these are uh like how many questions are the ones that you're looking at like uh they're like 12 to 15 questions kind of a quicker just glance it well and I sometimes you need a grade associated with it for students to take it seriously correct and that's to give you a better reflection of what I think we just it wouldn't be like a final exam yeah okay that's
082what I'm saying I I I I wish I appreciate that you guys have thought about it and I it'll be interesting to see how it implements I just was wondering what the thought was so I think that's good I think my other question would so in these 2 years of implementation what can you say probably somewhat anecdotally of the impact on our students what have you seen what have you seen give some if you have any thoughts or examples what saying I can tell you what I believe but she's living it every day do you have just initial thoughts and things of of what we've seen a difference in our students or impact on our students or yes so speaking from um I got to Highland right before we implemented this so I had a
083year of where everybody was kind of teaching their own thing we had preap in some classes and and some other things in other classes and this really streamlined things um so everybody got on the same page with piloting and with implementation um I'm happy to say that everybody in my department uses my perspectives everybody's really familiar with it and excited about it and because of that things are more consistent for the students so what I noticed with the students is that their learning is elevated because things are consistent my perspectives has vertical alignment built right into it um it also gives a lot more genres of text so our kids are getting a lot more non-fiction than they would have which is something that they need uh for the ACT um and on the final
084exam as well and so I've seen a lot of students do much better with quick cold reads like Jenna was saying um and answering questions quickly and writing about things quickly as opposed to um like the doing a full novel every single quarter right so we're still doing full novels we're still doing full plays they're still learning Shakespeare and the Odyssey and things like that but they're getting their hands on some um different texts like speeches and non-fiction and um short pieces like Metamorphosis is a is a Nolla really right it's a full text but it's 40 pages and and having the kids read different things of different lengths that are also um of different Lexile levels so that they have better practice in those skills so I started at Highland in teaching 9th and
08510th grade and now I teach AP Literature so the kids that were freshmen are now seniors in my class and one of the things that I can say is that we have a lot more students willing to go into honors and AP classes because of the consistency of the curriculum thanks who who who is involved in your walk your learning walks so we've done a variety of them um there have been some that are inclusive of um Marcy Taylor uh Mr Ryan um Tim Cannon our administrative coach instructional coaches at the campus uh curriculum uh if it be the coordinator's director um we've brought in some Department chairs as we see fit and then we also have several different like academic coaches and instructional Specialists we've welcomed them it really has been like here's where
086we're going if you want to sign up and this benefits your role and you feel like you can learn and help support our schools um it's kind of grown even if people didn't get the first invite when we first started them um people are asking they want to be a part of them and so now they've broken off into different categories so for example when I mentioned the ones we did on Monday it was our curriculum teams so we took out uh Mr Berard joined cuz he wanted to learn more about the secondary school so that he could help with that vertical uh alignment which I really appreciated and Mr Canon joined so he can support our admin and then the rest of it was our content coordinators so we actually went around and for
087tonight obviously we're talking about Ela but we went around and observed all the different content areas um we are asking our teachers to learn best instructional practices that are good in any content area and we encourage them to get out of their comfort and so we want to model and lead by example so um I I don't know how many times I heard today from the coordinators that Monday was their favorite day and that they really have not spent time in other content areas so we have agreed on um a quarterly process they do this annually with their content area all the time but to do it together as a CIA team that will be quarterly moving forward um and then I'm trying to think we also right now have a literacy team that is
088going to be supporting the literacy initi and that's made up of Elementary um uh coach um coordinators again all the way up to cabinet members and they're going around right now with the lens of looking for literacy in the classroom so um our Focus this last year has been Clarity on teaching so learning objectives and success criteria instructional practices next year our district um plan is on formative and summative assessment and so the following fiscal year then we'll start going out and looking for those things so uh really just making sure we're monitoring and uh making sure that we're in tuned with what's really happening in the classroom instead of assuming oh the teachers need training and support in this and then they get frustrated because they're like we're already doing that so now that
089we're in the classrooms more we know like they really don't need what we thought what they need is this piece and so they've been very celebratory and often times when we walk away it's like we left Campo yesterday and it was like all positives and I'm like is there anything we can say like hey here's next steps and so we take the time to send like personal emails to the teachers and the administrative teams for welcoming us and uh being open to that but truly I don't feel like there's a specific Department that hasn't been a part of those learning walks at this point do you I have to Sure in a science class I saw text on the desk like kids had been writing it looked like a like two or three paragraphs in
090this science class and so of course I walk over and I start reading it and I'm looking at first through the lens of an English teacher but pretty soon I forgot about that because did you know that Tokyo has a rat problem and they are now genetically immune to poison and they don't know how to stop it these kids were doing a whole lesson on genetic mutations and then they were making models and so I walk out in the hall and I'm like telling she's like can you please focus on it was like it was amazing to me and I also learned what comes first the y or the X in the math class I learned a lot it was great just a note Christa you haven't invited me on these walks Bonnie you're guess
091what I have a list for you you know you're getting an invitation now so along those same lines have you thought about having teachers do it or do you see a benefit to that that actually uh last year our um instructional coaches this process started with them and they actually slowly started inviting us out to be a part of their learning walks and that was when we got the idea to kind of take on to that next step with our district leadership so um the two instructional uh coaches in the back of the room are two of our leads in this and they are very welcoming they bring Department chairs and they open it up and correct me if I'm wrong but what I've seen and heard is they will invite teachers the principals sometimes
092will get subs or get teachers to cover during their prep and they go around and are doing this some campuses have um if they maybe pull their English people they maybe feel more comfortable just looking at English with the intention of going cross-curricular and some campuses are already at the point that good instruction is good instruction and they're looking across the board so it's actually happening way more frequently and regularly at our high schools due to our um instructional coaches being on this and they um have also gone to other campuses I believe two or three times last year where they paired up with another school to go see what's happening on another campus to maybe bring back some ideas and vice versa cuz cuz I I you know I I think that tailoring your
093your um plc's is absolutely a really wonderful idea but people can learn so much from seeing what other people do that's what're because they're doing basically the same thing and they may get an idea yeah about how to do it differently right rap problems in Tokyo it was fascinating I can tell and it was well written so will you be going to Tokyo this summer you know I my my son I can't get into this someday I will I'll wear boots no no open toad shoes all right any any other okay anything else thank you I I really appreciate the coming back and sharing with us how it's going and and how it's improving our instruction for students I think that's a really important part of these reports that our community here about what we're
094actually doing in our classrooms and how we are really moving the needle on student achievement thank you all for allowing us to share thank have a great night okay uh we'll now move on to uh item nine consent agenda items um 9.01 do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented I move that we approve the consent agenda items as presented thank you Mrs wood second second thank you very much Mr Thompson it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda items as presented all those in favor please signify by saying I I I okay so on a 5-0 vote they the consent agenda items have been approved we'll now move to um section 10 uh 10.01 we do not need uh to vote on this item tonight so
095we will just go ahead and skip that one we will now move to 10.02 increase in nutrition service meal prices for fiscal year 2025 um do I hear a motion so then we can discuss so thank you Mr Thompson it's been moved that we increase the nutrition services meal service meal prices for 20 fiscal year 2025 second second thank you Mrs Humphrey I believe yes um Dr mccort thank you madam president governing board members uh due to inflationary increases associated with labor and Food Supplies the nutrition services department is requesting a price increase of 10 cents for lunch at all levels and an increase of 10 cents for breakfast at the elementary level only specifically this meal price increases recommended to offset increases in food and Supply costs increases in minimum wage and labor costs
096and decrease of USDA reimbursement by 15% at breakfast and 40 cents at lunch provided during the height of the pandemic if you have further questions we have Miss bets we also have Miss Tenny here for our director of nutrition services thank you questions I think my question just is I see that we're a little bit on the higher end if we with this increase um possibly the other districts might um do some increases this year but I guess could you just just speak to that a little bit what what are the factors that might contribute to that so um so first of all I wanted to share that right now our fund balance was drawn down by about 1.6 million at the end of 2023 and we're anticipating another $ 1.8 to2 million draw down
097after the end of this year because we've kept the prices flat the last two years as we're coming out of the pandemic um in addition uh we are concerned about minimum wage increases in January again um but the question is a valid one why are we higher than uh than some of the other school districts well if you note we're actually lower on on breakfast um at the elementary level um at least in comparison to Chandler as well as to Higley so there is some uh change there uh from a global view of um school districts and how we compare to other school districts I do know and um maybe you could come up um Natalie I do know that our our staff has made an effort to offer choices numerous choices at the junior
098high and at the high school level and at this point in time they're actually change they have actually changed the schedule so that on Monday Wednesday Friday they have more choices than on Tuesday and Thursday um can you just go ahead and clarify that uh for us Natalie yes Madam president governing board members and Dr mcord thank you for inviting me to speak um we offer to streamline so that we can use less labor in the high schools on Tuesdays and Thursdays the um KFC inspired uh popcorn chicken bowl and the boneless buffalo wings are on two lines instead of one to expedite the lines and also U streamline the um food preparation process which has actually increased participation in those um menu days I've also spoken with um directors um of nutrition services in
099other districts and they are preparing to present to their boards um requests for meal price increases the districts that stay the lowest have a much significant higher rate of free and reduced eligible households than we have and so we aren't getting the full reimbursement that other districts are getting based on eligibility and so th those are the main reasons that we are doing it um but at the same time keeping it as low as possible so that we can feed as many students as we can so just a note about that you can see that the reimbursement for lunch as an example from the federal government is $433 so if you have a Mesa as an example Mesa unified so they have a very high free and reduced Lynch population and in looking at their
1002023 results have not seen the 2024 results at all but their their reimbursements from the federal government is something like 20 over $25 million and the amount that they receive from their local community in paid um lunches is lunches and breakfast is only 6 million whereas for Gilbert it's half and half we receive about $6 million from the federal government as well as about $6 million from from um our families that are paying so there's a a big difference between operating in Mesa and operating in in Gilbert so we're probably more comparable to Chandler or higgle in terms of our operation and then finally you know with that draw down and fund balance keep in mind that a 10cent increase is only it's it's only going to increase our Revenue by maybe 300 to $360,000
101so it's a very small increase and and we're just monitoring it closely as we go through time thank you I appreciate that I appreciate all you guys do in the lunches I know you take great pride in serving really good food and and making sure students have things that they like and are healthy so thank you thank you and I appreciate all the board members who have come and visited our lunch and eaten with us thank you I I do want you just to um just kind of give us an overview of the nutrition ntion that we're putting into these school lunches because nobody's going to be able to go out and buy a lunch for $4 that has the same nutrition and taste that we're offering in Gilbert Public Schools so can you just
102talk about that a little bit yes so first of all we have closed campuses so they don't go anywhere but you're right if you were to go to the dollar menu or now they're calling it the $5 menu or whatever at Wendy's or B Burger King or something you wouldn't get as much food for as little money and the nutrition value would be different so even if we were to serve super pretzels it's not the pretzels you would get at the movie theaters they're whole grain whole wheat reduce sodium reduce fat um we make sure that we have protein at least two servings every offering uh whole grains at least two servings every offering we offer fresh fruits and vegetables every day at all three levels and those are unlimited so if you really like
103grapes you can come back and get more it's it's as much as you want um then we also have fluid milk and we have at least two varieties every day and then we have um 100% fruit juice so the students are getting a wide variety of nutrition to fuel their learning in the classroom while at the same time keeping the cost as low as possible including um government commodity food to help with the cost too so you're right you would not be able to get it cheaper anywhere else all right thank you very much I appreciate that you're welcome so although it's a a bummer that uh we have to increase because of uh inflation and proposed uh minimum wage increases um I just want to commend you for uh keeping uh keeping the cost
104still as low as possible I mean if I'm looking at this here um our our high school I'm sorry our our lunches at the elementary junior high and high school level I mean this is some of these are are less than you know just a couple percentage increase when just inflation alone is you know double triple that Nationwide um and so the fact that we can keep those low and still uh and still make the this lunch program work for for our school district is commendable so thank you very much thank you Mr Thompson we do do taste testing and make sure the food is acceptable to the students but um like you said it is still very low um we don't want to raise it so much that people can't afford to buy our
105meals at the school so and uh the way that we're also combating inflation which is um significantly affecting us is Right sizing our staffs at the school cuz that is something you can control we can't control the food prices but we can uh rightsize and also being very mindful of our resources when we have to buy equipment and things like that to make sure that we're um being careful with our spending to um continue to keep a viable Financial program in the nutrition services welcome all right thank you any other questions appreciate it thank you very much welcome okay with hearing no further questions I'll take a call for a vote for the increase in the nutritional uh nutrition service meal prices as presented all those in favor please signify by saying I I okay
106on a - vote that has been approved thank you 10.03 math manipulatives adoption Dr mcord do you want to say something before we take on do a motion please yeah just uh this item is uh the manipulatives are from curriculum Associates which is the vendor for I ready that was approved but it's not from them but does not produce the math manipulatives they don't produce them which gives students a concrete model for abstract Concepts and so hand to mind has partnered with I ready to provide math manipulatives as a supplement to the I ready curriculum total cost of this is right around $375,000 and this coming out of fund 610 for Capital fund funds uh Mr Ryan and Miss uh Betts are available for questions regarding that thank you do I hear a motion to
107approve the the math manipulatives adoption I move that we approve the math manipulatives adoption thank you Mrs wood um second second thank you Mrs Paige discussion do don't the I doesn't the I math curriculum already come with manipulatives it does not oh uh curriculum and Associates does not they're not in the business of creating math manipulatives so they're the the curriculum Creator the manipulatives then um hand to mind actually creates manipulatives for a variety of different vendors um that you would select from many of which uh were considered when we went through this process so we would have been in the same spot uh depending on who we would have selected as the ultimate uh vendor for the the math adoption thank you do you want to just give us a couple examples of like
108what are math manipulatives what would they be used for and what grades are we talking sure um we're talking kindergarten through 8th grade um everything from I actually wrote down just a handful uh of depending on the kit each kit is different depending on the grade level everything from algebra tiles uh Geo boards fraction Towers base 10 blocks clocks number lines um very similar to the manipulatives we've had prior um 2012 was the last time those were purchased so you can imagine over the course of time they've dwindled in terms of volume and usefulness and so this is actually really replenishing what we had along with adding a few new manipulatives along um really in alignment to I ready and and the adoption that we're going through so even if we hadn't gone through this
109adoption probably this would have come up as a need for purchase just to replenish what we had back in 2012 you any other questions maybe oh go ahead oh I'm sorry no goe um maybe you already answered this or it was said and I missed it is this do this does this adoption pertain to a particular grade grade level grade K8 K8 k through eight k through eight there's a different kit depending on the grade level obviously for appropriateness okay thank you I I was just going to that um the price the cost we actually approved it was part of the cost the overall cost that we saw in the math adoption curriculum material cost as well it's not in addition to what that so it was what we had already budgeted for it and
110planned for it so this was part of that it wasn't in an addition correct okay anything else okay hearing none um I'll take vote for adopt or yeah the math manipulatives adoption all those in favor please signify by saying I I I so on a - vote 10.04 instructional time model for Global Academy um Dr McCord I think we've talked about this several times but I'll let you talk about it again we have this will be brief a March 5th board meeting uh the board approved the district to advertise the 2025 instructional time model public hearing for March 26th 2024 and the second public hearing was on April 9th 2024 at both hearings Administration presented to the governing board and the public the advertisement will appear on the Arizona Department of Education website and for
111those that are tuning in or go online that presentation is attached to this agenda item thank you do I hear a motion to approve the instructional time model for Global Academy that we have discussed several times so I move that we approve the instructional time model time model for Global Academy thank you Mrs Humphrey second second thank you Mr Thompson discussion and as I said we we already have discussed this several times so I think we've probably covered just about everything all those in favor please signify by saying I I I okay so on a 5- z vote uh and if we have any requests for future agenda items please uh see Dr McCord or myself so we can certainly accommodate that um we'll move to board committee reports 12.01 Insurance trust representative and I
112have nothing to um report tonight I'll move to legislative representative Mr Thompson nothing tonight thank you thank you Mr Thompson city of Mesa Le on Mrs wood nothing to report thank you town of Gilbert and and um tell Gilbert Le's on an audit committee Mrs humph so I was not able to attend but on a I believe it was April 13th that um Gilbert Public Schools participated in a town event where um it was it was geared towards autism but we were working on bike safety and and um I believe that we handed out helmets um or the town handed handed out helmets to to kids as they were learning about bikee safety and then the audit committee met and things are going very well and we won't be having another meeting for the audit
113committee for a few months until we're we we're done with the part we need to do and then waiting for the next audit right thank you Gilbert Education Foundation Mrs pige uh Dr McCord already mention the uh Awards tomorrow night so there's nothing further oh I'm sorry Friday what day is it oh no no it's tomorrow no it's tomorrow Tomorrow there's employ the year emplo the year is Friday sorry you like yeah there there's two okay thank you Mrs paig uh Dr mcord meeting dates thank you madam president gy board members May 7th board works study and brief board business meeting May 14th is a board policy committee meeting and May 21st is the last board meeting of the school year thank you time for adjournment do I hear a motion to adjourn I move
114that we adjourn thank you Mrs Paige second second thank you Mrs humph all those in favor of adjournment please signify by saying I I I thank you very much again